The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
Cin Cin
Cin Cin is a modern Italian neighbourhood restaurant in Hove, cooking seasonal small plates and handmade pasta from a monthly-changing menu. The wine programme earns its standing on an all-Italian list that reads the country in real depth and reaches a serious fine-wine tier, much of it poured by the glass, let down only by a thin sparkling shelf and a wine list with no local or organic story to match the kitchen's. It will most reward the diner who comes to eat Italian and wants to drink seriously by the glass, trading up plate by plate with the floor to guide them.
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Fourth and Church
Hove, East Sussex
Mediterranean and Levantine small plates, Sherry-led wine programme
Fourth and Church is a Hove wine bar and kitchen where a Sherry-and-flor-led, grower-focused list runs alongside a Mediterranean and Levantine small-plates menu. The wine programme achieves real mutual elevation — the cured-fish and oxidative-leaning plates are met by exactly the flor-aged and amber wines that flatter them, and the by-the-glass offer makes that range genuinely reachable — while leaving the artichoke and asparagus plates better served from a bottle. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to explore Sherry, skin-contact and low-intervention wine by the glass alongside food built to suit them.
Read the assessmentMaré by Rafael Cagali
Hove, East Sussex
Modern European (Brazilian-Italian)
Maré is Rafael Cagali's Michelin-starred Hove restaurant, a small-plates progression that draws his Brazilian upbringing and Italian heritage through a Sussex larder. The wine programme matches the kitchen's ambition with a deep, broad and genuinely local list — English sparkling at its heart, a generous fine-wine by-the-glass offer, and an exceptional fortified shelf — answered fluently to the food by a serious sommelier. It will most reward the wine lover who wants to drink widely and seriously by the glass, and who comes ready to let the floor lead them through a list worth exploring.
Read the assessmentTerre a Terre
Brighton, East Sussex
Vegetarian and vegan
Terre a Terre is Brighton's landmark vegetarian and vegan restaurant, where bold, globally drawn cooking sets a genuinely demanding wine challenge. Its organic and biodynamic programme answers most of that challenge with high-acid, aromatic and English sparkling styles and dedicated dessert pairings printed on the menu. It will most reward the adventurous diner who treats the glass as part of the cooking, and who asks the floor for a low-alcohol or off-dry pour when the Szechuan plates arrive.
Read the assessmentThe Union
Rye, East Sussex
Modern British small and large plates
The Union is a seasonal modern-British small-plates restaurant on the hill in Rye, cooking from Sussex and Kent produce and the local catch. Its wine programme earns its standing on provenance and integrity — a genuinely local-led English list, deep in nearby sparkling and still growers and honest on price, widened by a well-chosen low-intervention selection from further afield — let down only by a thin sweet-and-fortified corner. It will most reward the diner who wants to eat and drink a sense of place, and who is happy to let a list built next door lead the way.
Read the assessmentThe Crazy Goose
Brighton, East Sussex
Modern British / gastropub
The Crazy Goose is a refined British pub in The Lanes whose kitchen cooks seasonal, local food a clear step above the pub norm. The wine programme is its quiet surprise — an unusually deep and confident list for a pub, from a thirty-pound entry bottle to mature Bordeaux and Barolo, offered with rare flexibility by the small glass, the large glass and the carafe, and let down only by the absence of a dry Sherry the saltiest plates would love. It will most reward the diner who comes for a proper plate of British cooking and wants to drink a serious glass, not only a serious bottle, alongside it.
Read the assessmentRiddle and Finns
Brighton, East Sussex
Seafood
Riddle and Finns is a long-standing Brighton seafood house across two sites, serving everything from native oysters and caviar to boldly spiced crab and curry. The wine programme is built with the food in mind — strong on Sussex sparkling and Champagne, well-stocked with the crisp coastal whites that flatter shellfish, and accessible by the glass — though it stops short of a dry Sherry and the off-dry whites that the fiercest dishes really want. It will most reward the seafood lover who likes to drink sparkling and bright whites with their fish and is happy to order by the glass to match the table.
Read the assessmentNo.34
Lewes, East Sussex
Low-intervention wine bar, seasonal small plates
No.34 is a low-intervention wine bar and seasonal kitchen in Lewes where a coherent grower list, poured by the glass, the pot and the bottle, is the reason to come. The wine programme earns its standing on the quality and clarity of that buying and on an unusually good Sherry and sweet-wine offer for a kitchen this size, with the high-acid, low-tannin list genuinely built to answer the vegetable-led plates it serves. It will most reward the curious drinker who wants to explore natural wine in good hands and is happy to let the glass, and the floor, lead the way.
Read the assessmentPoco
Alfriston, East Sussex
Italian osteria and bottle shop
Poco is an Italian osteria and bottle shop in Alfriston that prints a chosen wine, by the glass and the bottle, against every dish it serves. The wine programme earns its standing on that integration and on the honesty of pricing each pour in the open, an Italian regional list deepened by a bottle shop and a fine-wine Coravin selection, let down only by the gaps a fuller list would close — no sparkling, no dessert wine, and a New World glass or two at odds with the Italian idea. It will most reward the diner who comes to eat Italian and let the menu choose the wine, and who treats the printed pairings as the genuinely useful tool they are.
Read the assessment